How Do I Know This One Thing? And Why Should You As Well?

Some Background

Let me start with I didn't always have this understanding and largely thought it was a side show of the Bible when I was young. All through the later part of the 20th Century I would hear the ridiculed phrase "You aren't one of those Christian that believe the Earth is just 7,000 years old are you? That is crazy" or "We know every seminary makes it clear that the millennial kingdom is metaphor". Every time I heard these in the media or in person my thought was immediately "Who are these Christians that think this, I have never even met one of them, this is such a strawman topic, there is no support for this really". Which was true I never met Christians that said this other than the most extreme separatist groups or people that really never read their bible with any focus. Everyone I knew even in contrasting denominations had a more nuanced understanding of the topic. Little did I know that in a few decades I would stare at someone in the mirror every morning who believed this, later in life.

Let me clarify I don't think the Earth is 7,000 years old, far from it (even the Hebrew scribes write that Torah was written by God 2,000 years before the Age of Chaos). It might not be as old as some might think (we keep shrinking the age of the Universe as more and more data comes in from advanced telescopes) but it isn't 7,000 years old. The story of mankind, the active history of God's interaction with his imagers, and his plan for them is 7,000 years though, one week by design. As I write this it is 5,950 years old and sprinting to 6,000 with increasing speed like labor pains in a maternity ward.

 

Some Evidence

Lets get to hard facts, that like birth contractions will start vague and build in intensity.

The Occurrence of Sevens

The Seven-Day Week, found across nearly all civilizations, not directly tied to solar/lunar cycles but rooted in creation points to the plan of God. He repeated this with the 7 annual feasts, and the seven branches of the Temple Menorah designed to reference his 7 day plan and the 7 visible wandering planets. It doesn't end there, you have the seven 7 year Shemittah periods that make up the jubilee cycle, the seven trumpets of Jericho and Revelation. Seven priests, seventy weeks, seven seals & bowls. All of the bible references time and reality in units of seven.

Not only that but seven seems oddly woven into the fabric we exist in at a deep level. Much of this isn't proof but it isn't random either.

There are seven notes in the Diatonic Scale and the overtones, there are seven clear colors in the visual spectrum, there are seven periods to the Periodic Table, rows of elements organized by electron shells. There are 7 diatomic elements in nature. There are seven fundamental crystal systems in Crystallography (cubic, tetragonal, orthorhombic, hexagonal, trigonal, triclinic, monoclinic). There are 7 classical “catastrophes” in catastrophe theory. There are seven SI Base Units in the foundation of physics (meter, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, candela). There are seven visible Planets in our solar system. The moon has roughly 7 days in each quarter phase. There are seven major Continents with seven seas and seven major tectonic plates (African, Antarctic, Eurasian, Indo-Australian, North American, Pacific, South American). In Geometry and Graph Theory there is the Seven Bridges of Königsberg Problem (an Eulerian path, is only possible if there are at most two landmasses/vertices with an odd number of bridges/edges connected to them). Seven is a prime number and is the 4th prime at that (like there are 7,000 years and 4 Ages make up those 7,000 years).

Not just in math and physics but biology loves seven. Seven emerges as a byproduct of Fibonacci’s spiral mathematics in real plants and flowers, even though it’s not part of the Fibonacci sequence itself. Nearly all mammals from mouse to giraffe have exactly seven neck vertebrae. There are 7 day circaseptan rhythms built into cellular biology: Immune cycles, organ rejection timing, and hormone surges follow 7-day patterns. There are seven layers to Human Skin (Epidermis has 5, dermis has 2 main layers). Seven layers in the human eye (retina’s structural layers). Seven openings in the head (2 eyes, 2 ears, 2 nostrils, 1 mouth). Skin, bone, and cellular regeneration often observed in cycles close to seven years. Seven essential macronutrient groups for life (carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, fiber, water). Seven types of blood cells, if you divide by function (red cells, neutrophils, eosinophils, basophils, lymphocytes, monocytes, platelets). Seven endocrine glands regarded as primary in vertebrates (pituitary, thyroid, parathyroid, adrenal, pineal, pancreas, gonads).

These are not proof of anything, and is exhausting to read but not exhaustive as there are more. Many numerical trends appear in life but seven does stand out as one of a kind as if the world yells its reality.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech…
-Psalm 19:1–4 

The Writings from God

Moving from the Natural to the Written, we start to see what God has said about the plan via his representatives, prophets, patriarchs, and scribes.

Lets start with the seven day design of the week, I will not belabor this point any but it is the Alpha to the whole discussion. If you know your Tanakh and New Covenant you know how the 7 day week is woven into everything.

"For six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the LORD your God; on it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male slave or your female slave, or your cattle, or your resident who stays with you."

-Exodus 20:9-10 

“In six troubles He will save you; Even in seven, evil will not touch you.
-Job 5:19

Not just the week but the Jubilee cycle of God which is made up of 7 year Shemitahs that occur in groups of 7 to make a 49 year cycle that is cap stoned with a year of Jubilee making 50 years in total.

"At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel any loan they have made to a fellow Israelite. They shall not require payment from anyone among their own people, because the Lord’s time for canceling debts has been proclaimed."

-Deuteronomy 15:1-2

Those 50 year Jubilee cycles are grouped into 10 to make up one 500 year Onah. Those Onahs are grouped into four to make a 2,000 year age.

The school of Eliyahu (Elijah) taught: Six thousand years is the duration of the world. Two thousand of the six thousand years are characterized by chaos; two thousand years are characterized by Torah, from the era of the Patriarchs until the end of the mishnaic period; and two thousand years are the period of the coming of the Messiah.
-Sanhedrin.97a.14 

All that time, all the years, Shemitahs, Jubilees, Onahs, Ages they all come back to the week of God.

For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes by, Or like a watch in the night.

-Psalm 90:4

 

The heavens and the earth were created with specific cycles and times, and the Torah is their blueprint. The redemption is written within these cycles.
-Talmud, Shabbat 88a 

This all just lays the foundation that there is a calendar of God, that it works in sevens and that it has an end but what about the 7th day, the day of rest, the day of the Kingdom of Messiah?